


Gifted

by Pessa



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7062907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pessa/pseuds/Pessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship, at first, consists of sex and presents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gifted

Their relationship, at first, consists only of sex and presents. Specifically, his for her. He doesn’t know exactly why he can’t stop bringing her stuff; but every time he tries to think about what this _thing_ is between them, he gets a weird panicky feeling under his breast bone and the next thing he knows he’s hauling another Luvulian dog sculpture through the gate.

He should probably just stop trying to think about it. Her office is getting full.

“Oh, thank you, Major! The Athosians certainly make beautiful pottery, don’t they? I’ll put it on my desk with the others.”

Maybe the presents are his way of trying not to be rude to her. Like a thank you card. She spends her evenings slamming him into every surface of her quarters without expecting anything more, which makes him feel… impolite. Or something. Aren’t women supposed to hate undefined, casual sex? But really, she’s the one who started it. She turned up with a bottle of wine their _very first night in Atlantis,_ and said, Let’s have a drink, we should get to know each other.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to seduce me, he joked, and she didn’t laugh. And that was that.

The truth is, the presents aren’t about being polite, and he knows it.

“Fascinating. It’s used to ward off evil spirits? I think I have room to hang it by the door. No, over to the side - I don’t want it to frighten visitors.”

He asked her, once, about the guy she has at home. Asked at the worst possible time. She’d stilled above him. Simon understands, she said. He’s always understood how it is when I’m away.

That should make him happy, too. But it doesn’t feel great, being something her surgeon boyfriend _understands_.

So he brings her presents, and she lets him. Even displays them publicly, and he hates how good that makes him feel. Really, he shouldn’t overthink it. Every great leader needs a vice, and if he’s hers, well - lucky him. Could be a lot worse. He once served under a three star general who would get drunk and then try to fly an F-15. At least he never needs to wrestle this boss out of an 80 million dollar cockpit.

“More dog sculptures? All right.”

It is also convenient in terms of scheduling. They never have enough time to talk about work _at_ work, and so instead of whispering sweet nothings, they tend to spend the afterglow talking about personnel assignments. She’ll prop her chin on his knee, smile at him, and spend the next several hours second guessing his placement of Airman Prince on Team Three instead of Team Four.

It’s those hours that confuse him the most. Because when he’s wrapped up in the scratchy military sheets with her and arguing about stuff he could not give less of a shit about - he doesn’t think he’s ever been happier.

“Oh, John, you’ve outdone yourself. This is the ugliest one yet. Let’s put it right in the middle.”

After Kolya, while the storm still rages outside and Atlantis is dark and empty and safe, the six of them linger in the lounge late into the night. No one says anything, or ever will, about the way he and Elizabeth can’t seem to stop touching each other. The normal rules are suspended and everyone’s a little more tactile as they all pile under the comforters they dragged in and let spiced Athosian wine warm their bellies. So John can kid himself that no one’s noticed that Elizabeth’s legs are thrown across his under the blankets, or how his hand lazily massages the back of her head.

Harder to kid himself when she falls asleep against his chest. He should wake her up, send her to bed, but instead he wraps his arms around her. His eyes meet Teyla’s over Elizabeth’s head, but she doesn’t say a word. Elizabeth’s hair is still damp against his cheek. He knows it’s from the shower, not the storm, but still he feels like he has to personally keep her warm.

He wakes in an empty lounge with a crick in his neck.

“Thank you, Major, but I’m afraid my office is full. Why don’t you hang the tapistry in the mess hall?”

It’s indisputably true. His nervous habit has left her without any more space to display his gifts. That she stops accepting them at the same time she stops showing up at his door - well, he can’t prove that’s more than a coincidence.

He doesn’t have time to mourn. The tempo’s picking up, the wraith are coming, and he and Elizabeth aren’t lovers, they’re two halves of a whole, and there are more late nights, sitting in the lounge with worry spread out before them, going over the plans one more time and one more after that, and he doesn’t touch her anymore but sometimes he feels like they share the same headaches, the same blood rushing faster and faster in their ears -

Then he’s sitting in a jumper on a wraith ship and it’s quiet.

You know, if this works, somebody might have to do it again.

Understood.

He’s thinking of the first gift he got her. An Athosian pot. Not the one for her birthday - this one is smaller, and has a slightly iridescent blue glaze that he was irrationally sure, after knowing her for less than two weeks and never discussing pots, that she would like. She often spins it absently while she’s working at her desk.

Up here, in these last quiet moments, things seem a lot simpler. He thinks of her slender fingers, running over it.

Then life slams back into him.

He’s alive, he’s alive, and his newfound clarity will have to wait. When she walks up to him in the gate room, he’s already looking past her with a dozen questions and orders on his lips. Then she throws her arms around him in front of everyone, and he goes stiff as a statue. The only thing he can’t accept from her is exactly what he wants.

After their hard-won victory, their paths through the city orbit each other, rarely in the same place for long. He feels her eyes on him, but it hurts to look at her. Her face opens a wound in him and he can’t afford to bleed right now. He will not warm her bed tonight.

He does leave the very first chocolate bar off the Daedalus on her desk.

It’s three weeks later on Earth that he sees a name on a folder. There are three piles: A small one marked _accepted_ , a much bigger one marked _rejected_ , and a third, containing only the one folder: _declined_.

Fine, great, Dr. Wallace isn’t coming. But she asked him to. He begrudges her the chocolate bar and moves on with his life.

They can do this, he thinks. They can go back to being friends (back? OK, they can start) and forget their months of entanglement. After all, he’s a lieutenant colonel now (and yes, he loves reminding her of that, loves the little smile she gets). He should be more responsible. And she’s clearly not really interested in a guy like him.

But they’ve got weeks to kill on the Daedalus and he’s got a present for her burning a hole in his suitcase. After their latest adventure he finds himself staring out one of the ports. “Evening, colonel,” a passing airman says, and he returns his salute and thinks, _Fuck it._

She answers the door on the first knock. She’s wearing pajamas, little pink shorts and a top with a puppy pattern on it. It feels strangely intimate. He rarely saw her in pajamas. 

“I, uh,” he says. “I got you something. On Earth.”

The warmth in her eyes is almost too much. “Come in,” she says, and thought part of him wants to bolt, he does.

He hands her the crumpled paper bag. She sits on her bed, near him but not touching, as she opens it. She cracks up when she sees the little plastic figurine.

“Goofy?”

“I wasn’t sure you had enough dog statues.”

“I got you something, too,” she says shyly. He sits up straighter. That’s a first. Unless you count his career and his team and his promotion and his second lease on life.

Hers is nicely wrapped, of course. He tears through the paper even more eagerly than he feels to make her laugh. It’s a toy helicopter - the same kind he was flying the day they met.

“I didn’t know what to get you,” she says. “I really don’t know what you like.”

He looks at her. Her elbows are propped on her knees, her face scrubbed pink and bare. A wavy lock of hair hangs over one eye. The obvious answer presents itself but he doesn’t say it.

“It’s great,” he says. “I’ll put it in my office. It’s been a little bare.”

She puts a hand on his arm. _Here we go,_ he thinks, and kisses her.

Lying together, after, they don’t speak. The city is still far away, and for once it’s just them. No chores to get to, no arguments they’ve been meaning to have. Of course he has to ruin it.

“Why did you ask him to come?”

She shifts in his arms. “I wanted to fall in love with him again,” she said. “I wanted something easier than this.”

It should hurt more than it does. “You started this because it was easy,” he points out.

“I know.” She picks up Goofy from the nightstand, makes him walk along John’s shoulder. “But it’s never going to be again. God, John, when you beamed back into the gate room -”

His arms tighten reflexively. “I know.”

“Best present you ever gave me,” she whispers.

He can see this thing of theirs, trailing off into the future. Not a straight line, but a sine curve, ebbs and flows. It’ll never be a good idea, but they’ll never be able to let each other go. He’s sure of one thing.

“You know I’m never going to stop bringing you random crap for your office, right?”

“I’ll order some shelves,” she murmurs, and pulls his face down to hers.


End file.
